Commuting to work this morning -- by bus mind you -- I picked up interesting comment from morning radio show: "PIE is congested, affecting TPE and quite possibly ECP". Singapore is very fond of TLAs (three letter acronyms). The list of acronyms in SG seems endless. Over the last few days I have come across at least MOM, HBD, MRT, DBS, ERP, GST, NRIC, EP and also the names of the highways as mentioned over the radio. The plethora of acronyms borders on the extend of acronym usage within one specific global IT conglomerate.
It's not only acronyms, but having visited Singapore previously on private trips, there are number of apparent things which didn't surprise me anymore. In terms of comprehensiveness, I try to memorize some of the very first impressions I had on my previous visits. I am not planning to rephrase wikipedia entry of Singapore as such, but emphasizing on some of my original initial feelings.
Singapore seems to be a model society when it comes to harmoniously integrating different ethnicities and religions. There is probably more to this when digging in deeper into the society, but the first impression is definitely a positive one. On any given street one can spot a hindu temple right next to a mosque right next to a catholic church. There are total of 4 official languages used (Mandarin, Malay and Tamil) in addition to English being shared by all groups, which seemingly increases internal unity among the population. The accent of local English takes a while to get used to, but level of English is very good compared to any other Asian country I have visited. For example all taxi drivers speak English -- which is not the case for example in New York! Taxi drivers tend to be often actually a very chatty bunch of people. I just got an extensive marketing speech for Asus padphone during my latest Taxi trip.
One thing that cannot be left unnoticed on the very first trip to Singapore is the amount of trees, flowers and overall greenery left in between the buildings. Too often in the concrete jungles of any major metropolitan cities the trees are strictly confided to their own areas within fenced parks, but over here the city planners have had the sense of not hiding the tropical nature of the geographical location of the country. Just for example the East Coast Parkway (aforementioned ECP) -- highway leading from the airport to the city -- is surrounded by umbrella trees giving shade and cut in half with endless bushes and flower beds.
Another apparent finding is the general cleanliness of the surroundings. One doesn't really find any rubbish or trash whatsoever thrown on ground anywhere within the city. There is not a one broken public property (like a bus stop or trash cans) in sight. After visiting a public park in Berlin during one weekend, I have seen the other end of the same axis. There are most likely couple of explanations for this: primary one being the draconian nature of law interpretation in the country. The punishments for any devious activity no matter how minor in nature (like jaywalking, littering, driving a car with black smoke coming out of the exhausting pipe...) can be very severe from extensive fines to public caning and eventually to capital punishment. So as long as I'm able to resist my urges of random acts of vandalism like spray painting over a diplomats car, I am happily enjoying very safe and clean surroundings. But in addition to fear of punishment, I believe, one main motivation of upholding to these virtues is the positive feedback loop: as long as everybody puts out their cigarettes in the provided ash trays nobody wants to be the first one to start littering the grounds.
Finally I could go on and on about the first impressions around different cuisines served around here, but I'll save that as a completely separate blog entry -- perhaps multiple entries.
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